


lullaby for a stormy night

by mintpearlvoice



Category: It Lives (Visual Novels)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Canon Compliant, F/M, Gen, Trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-08
Updated: 2020-09-08
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:20:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26365579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mintpearlvoice/pseuds/mintpearlvoice
Summary: Harper's so used to being strong for her family and friends that after surviving a murder attempt, she doesn't know how to ask for help.Good thing she doesn't have to.
Relationships: Tom Sato/Main Character (It Lives Beneath)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 7





	lullaby for a stormy night

Harper staggers into the house, wet cutoffs and tank top clinging to her body, damp curls cold on her shoulders.

There’s smoke coming from the toaster oven. Something’s beeping. The fish sticks.

She was making fish sticks for Grandpa and Elliot. (Richard would have killed Elliot. He would have hurt him.) The beeping continues. What is she supposed to do? Why won’t the noise stop?

She watches her hands unplug the toaster oven. Her wrists are all bruised and cut up. From the zip ties. From the nail in the coffin. How could he hate her that much?

The fire alarm- that’s what’s making the noise- is still going off. Harper gets a knife (sharpened recently, nice thick blade) out of the cutlery drawer and sits with her back to the wall where no one can sneak up on her. She waits for the noise to stop.

“Harper?” Elliot calls.

“Shit. The door’s open. Looks like someone forced the lock. Stay back, kiddo, okay?”

Elliot whimpers.

 _I’m okay, I’m right here,_ Harper wants to say, but her teeth are chattering too hard for words.

Grandpa looks angry, but not angry at her. “Harper. Look at me, kid- you can put down the knife. Anything bleeding? Do I need to slit any throats?”

“Richard Sutcliffe tried to kill me,” she manages. It’s all she can think about. All she can say. He came into her house and drugged her and put her in a coffin and threw it into the lake. “He tried to kill me. Tied me up. In a coffin. Thought I would drown, he’s gone now, he drowned in the lake…”

With a grim nod, Grandpa turns back towards the door and calls, “Your sister’s right here.”

Elliot doesn’t move. “Is she okay?”

“She’s not injured, but I’m going to call Parker. He’ll need to take a statement, get a blood sample- keep an eye on her for me.”

Then her grandpa isn’t there and Elliot is, kneeling in front of her, eyes wide. “Harper- when we got home, I was so scared-“

“Don’t worry, Scooter,” she manages, voice croaky from coughing up water. “I wouldn’t let anything stop me from coming back to you.”

They ask her questions: can you unlock your phone, did you breathe in water, what do you want for dinner. She makes herself speak and move, obeying their prompts. Her body won’t respond to anything else.

Time- who knows how much? – passes. Parker sticks his head into the kitchen. “Hey, Harper, can I come in?”

She nods, hugging her knees. Parker’s here. Parker’s real.

He crouches in front of her. “Harper, I want you to know an incident like this-“

“Is traumatic, and whatever I’m feeling right now is normal, and you want to make sure I know that I’m safe,” she quotes, doing her best to smile. “It’s okay, I’ve heard it all before. Just let me know what you need from me.”

Parker writes down her statement. Easy. All she has to do is describe the images playing on permanent loop in her head: _I closed the freezer door, and there he was. We fought, he stabbed me with a syringe, I woke up in a coffin, he said I’d killed Mom and Dad, that I was responsible for ruining his life…_ “But I wasn’t trying to kill him.” Parker needs to know that. “He got stuck in the boat… the fire extinguisher, it made a hole… if I’d tried to get him free, he would have dragged me down with him.”

A sympathetic nod. “I know, Harper. That’s the third time you’ve told me that. I’ve got all the information I need, okay? You don’t have to say anything else.”

A forensic investigator takes Harper’s wet clothes after she’s changed out of them, draws her blood, swabs under her nails, has her pee in a sample cup, and takes pictures of her injuries. The ragged cuts on her wrists, the scrapes on her palms from shoving at the rough wood, the bruises from where she got hit in the chest with a fire extinguisher.

Parker tells her “We’re already dredging the lake for bodies. The fact that Richard was caught in his boat will make his remains easier to find; as soon as that happens, we can close the case. It’s over, Harper. You have nothing to worry about.”

He moves her to the couch; Grandpa puts a mug of black tea with lemon into her hands and a big flannel blanket around her shoulders. Steam rises from the mug, and Harper wishes she could feel its warmth, wishes she could stop shivering. It’s like the night-chilled lake is in her blood. 

When she was standing on the boat, she told Sutcliffe she was bringing him to stand trial for his crimes. That he’d be locked up for life.

Maybe he saw her shadow in the sunset, heard the cold anger in her voice, and thought she was Josephine’s final revenge- but she didn’t mean to kill him.

But his death means it’s truly over. That no one will try to hurt Harper or her family ever again.

So why is she still so freaked out?


End file.
